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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Mixed Media Collage by Catherine Temple

I felt like I needed a little creative challenge ( as if doing ANY art piece isn't challenge enough!) and decided to try my hand at a mixed media art piece. I've been pondering these for awhile and thought "looks easy enough" and set about finding things to glue to a canvas. This was actually a lot of fun for me since I'm a collector of all sorts of odd bits and pieces of things. I love feathers and interesting moss, rocks, sea shells, leaves, interesting seed pods. I've been known to make my husband do some pretty crazy stuff to acquire the object of my desire and then pack it home for me. A set of deer antlers comes to mind.... never mind that they were still attached to a deer we'd found that had died over the winter.... but I'm wandering now. So, where was I? Oh yes. I collected some things and proceeded to get started.

Like everything else one has never tried before there is always a learning curve and I am somewhat of a perfectionist and expect to be an expert my first time out. Now everyone, stop snickering....I know some of you are the same way. Just how hard can these things be??? Turns out the "finding things" was the easiest part, followed by the actual gluing down of everything. The parts in between were, well, definitely challenging! I really didn't have a clue as to what I was doing and should have chosen a theme before I started. My work space was covered with lots of stuff I really didn't need, all the "pretties" and unusual stuff, some wonderful papers I bought, my tools, glue, scissors. You name it, I probably had it! Eventually, I started to sort through it all and an idea started to form....sort of.

After a long while of staring at it all and wondering what ever possessed me to do this, I started cutting and tearing paper and trying to place it all in some semblance of order, some "logical" progression of items. I know that collage probably has some thought process to it, but I think that some of the fun of it is supposed to be the "unordered" look, you know, kind of free form. So finally, I just said "what the heck," laid it all out nicely on my table and then had to figure out how to glue it all down without disrupting my very nice design because, of course, the first pieces to get glued down are now on the bottom of the design! And, heaven forbid, you don't want to sneeze!!! ACHOO! Papers, feathers, design going everywhere! (I'm thinking open windows, fans, any air movement is a really bad thing at this point!) Sigh!

Finally, after longer hours than it should have taken, my design was complete. I have to say that I have a new found interest in this art form and a healthy respect and admiration for the artists who are able to do it and do it well. Will I try it again? Oh, probably, because there are aspects of it that are just a whole lot of fun. Going on a treasure hunt for the items, all that cutting and gluing and painting sure makes you feel like a kid again! And I think most of us need a good dose of that!

Well, I'm off to go think up some other challenge for myself...NOT! I think instead I'll go play in the dirt, pull some weeds, plant something. Oh, hey, look at that snail shell! Now what can I do with that......

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About Me

Catherine lives in eastern Washington with her husband, Brian and her dog, Balin. She is an avid outdoorswoman, nature lover and artist. Her favorite subjects are animals of all kinds, domestic and wild, but especially birds and dogs. She enjoys painting in all water media especially acrylic, watercolor and casein. When she's not painting you can find her in the garden, riding ATVs, or enjoying the outdoors somewhere with sketchbook and camera at hand, stalking the subject of her next painting.